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CUBA 

AT A GLANCE 

BT 

A. O'HAGAN 

AND 

E. B. KAUFMAN 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BT 

President T. Estrada Palma 
of the Cuban Junta 



fKR 



NEW YORK . R. H. RUSSELL 

1898 



LIVED- 



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rp HANKS are due the New York Journal for 
■*■ the use of its library and access to the letters 
of its war correspondents. 

The authors also acknowledge their indebtedness 
to the Cuban Junta, whose original documents 
have been of great assistance. 

COPYRIGHT 1898 

BY 

ROBERT HOWARD RUSSELL 

Printtd in tbt Unittd Statu of Amtrha 



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Introduction 

HISTORY proves that the inde- 
pendence of a people has always 
been born of sacrifice. In no in- 
stance, however, has there been 
such suffering, sacrifice and abnegation as was 
demanded of the Cuban people. From 1868, 
for ten long and bloody years, the Cubans en- 
gaged in an unequal struggle against Spain; 
unequal in numbers and unequal in resources. 
Not only the patriots in arms suffered, but 
their families and friends were sacrificed to the 
sanguinary brutality of the Spanish command- 
ers. 

At last, when almost exhausted, Spain of- 
fered terms, which were accepted but never 
fulfilled. 

The spirit of independence only slumbered; 
the fires of patriotism still glowed. 

On the 24th of February, 1895, the call to 
arms again sounded. It found response in the 
hearts of all true Cubans. 

The veteran fighter was ready to make re- 
newed sacrifices for the ideal. The youths 
sought to emulate the noble example of their 
sires. 



6 Introduction 

The revolution was not entered upon blind- 
ly. Too well had the Cubans been taught 
what they had to expect from the soldiers of 
Spain. There would be no mercy for the pa- 
triot in arms, none for the sick or the wound- 
ed. Age and sex would not stay the hand of 
the Spaniard. The country would be ruined; 
all would have to be sacrificed. 

Yet the Cubans never faltered. Rather 
have the country reduced to a heap of ashes 
than the mockery of the fertility of the land 
under Spanish rule. 

The Cubans had not enjoyed the privileges 
of men. They toiled for the benefit of the 
Spanish tyrant and despoiler. They did not 
live; they existed. 

From out of the ash heap they would form 
a new nation, ruled by the highest type of gov- 
ernment — of, for and by the people. Enriched 
by patriotic blood, the island would become 
more productive than ever. 
' No more false promises were to be accepted. 
From the beginning the Cubans cut all bridges 
behind them. They adopted their motto — 
"Independence or Death." 

How steadfast they have been in carrying 
out their resolve is now history. 

Never has there been such suffering entailed 
on an entire people. So certain were the 
Spaniards of the sympathy of all Cubans with 



Introduction 7 

the revolution that they took measures to ex- 
terminate the entire race. 

The half of our suffering and sacrifice is not 
known, the other half appeared so incredible 
that years passed before the world was con- 
vinced. Spain, a recognized nation, was lis- 
tened to and believed. Cuba, having taken the 
law in her own hands, was looked upon with 
suspicion. 

Only in the United States was there sym- 
pathy for the oppressed and the outraged. 

The patriots in arms shed their blood freely; 
those in the cities and abroad coined their 
blood to supply arms and ammunition. But 
the sacrifice had not been uselessly made; the 
blood shed had not been in vain ; the lives lost 
were not fruitless. Once satisfied of the true 
condition of affairs, the American people were 
not to be restrained. They fulfilled their mis- 
sion on this continent, their duty to> civilization 
and humanity. 

The result is a most holy war. 

One more republic is added to the American 
nations. 



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In Camp, Feb. 20, 1898. 

To General Fitzhugh Lee, 

Consul General U. S. at Havana, 

General : 

The news of the catastrophe of the Maine 
has greviously affected the Cuban people in arms, 
and I have the honor to address you for the purpose 
of expressing to you the pain which the loss of so 
many lives has caused to all of us. We Cubans do 
not forget how much sympathy we owe to the 
people of the Great Nation who share our anxiety 
and understand the justice of our cause. Permit 
me then to request you to make expression to them 
of our fraternal condolences on the sad event which 
we lament, and from my part receive the personal 
assurance and sad expression of my highest con- 
sideration and esteem. I kiss your hand. 









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Cuban Republic, 

Army of Invasion, 

2nd Commandent 

Nueva Pass, Feb. 21, 1896. 

To Delegate Thomas Estrada Palma, 

New York. 

My Distinguished Friend : 

Senora Felicia Facenda, the wife of Col. Adel 
Castillo, accompanied by her daughter, being obliged 
to move to your city, I take great pleasure in re- 
commending them with all consideration to you. 
I know that you will be pleased to show them all 
the politeness which they deserve on account of 
their relationship to their worthy chief, renowned 
for his patriotism, courage and excellent conduct, 
and also that they will receive such treatment from 
you as people deserve who leave their country to 
escape the persecutions and dangers due to the 
policy which Spain through Weyler has just in- 
augurated here. I speak for them their deep grati- 
tude and I once more beg you to believe me 

Your most obedient servant and 
friend who kisses your hand. 




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U.S.SENATE CHAMBER, 

WASHINGTON. D.C. 

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Contents 



Introduction Thomas Estrada Palma 

CHAPTER I 

America's Ultimatum . . 15 

CHAPTER II 

The Reconcentrados . . 20 

CHAPTER III 

The Black Warrior and the Vir- 

ginius , ,"- -s . 27 

CHAPTER IV 

Recent American Grievances . 37 

CHAPTER v 

Cuba; 1492-1762 . . . 43 

CHAPTER VI 

" The Ever Faithful Isle " . 50 

CHAPTER VII 

Early Insurrections . . . 55 



14 Contents 

CHAPTER VIII 

The Ten Years' War . . 60 

CHAPTER IX 

The Present Cuban-Spanish War 66 

CHAPTER X 

The Spanish and Cuban Leaders 74 

CHAPTER XI 

Cuban Government . . .81 

CHAPTER XII 

The Geography of Cuba . . 87 

CHAPTER XIII 

Notes by War Correspondents . 95 



I. 



REMEMBER the Maine! 
Release the reconcentrados! 
One call is the cry for vengeance; 
one, the cry for humanity. Together 
they are the watchwords of the American- 
Spanish war of 1898. About them the causes 
of the conflict group themselves. 

On the night of February 15, 1898, the 
United States battle ship Maine was blown up 
in Havana Harbor. The Maine was paying 
what is called in diplomatic language "a friend- 
ly visit." It lay in waters under the jurisdic- 
tion of a nation with which the United States 
was at peace. 

The night was quiet, warm and starlit. 

The seamen of the Maine who were off duty 
had, many of them, turned into their bunks. 
Some sat smoking their "goodnight pipes." 
Most of the officers had gone to their cabins. 
Some were writing letters. 

At twenty minutes past nine a frightful 



1 6 Cuba at a Glance 

shock was felt. The ship was rent. In a few 
minutes the water was full of floating bodies, 
the air bright with flame. The Maine was 
destroyed, and with her two hundred and 
forty-six American seamen were hurled to 
swift death. 

"I was just closing a letter to my family 
when I felt the crash of the explosion." 

This was part of Captain Sigsbee's testi- 
mony given before the United States Naval 
Board of Inquiry, consisting of Captain W. T. 
Sampson, Captain T. E. Chadwick, Lieuten- 
ant W. P. Potter and Lieutenant Commandef 
Adolph Marix. 

"It was a bursting, rending and crashing 
sound or roar of immense volume, largely me- 
tallic in character. It was succeeded by a 
metallic sound, probably of falling debris, a 
trembling and lurching motion of the vessel, 
then an impression of subsidence, attended by 
an eclipse of the electric lights and intense 
darkness within the cabin. I knew imme- 
diately that the Maine had been blown up and 
that she was sinking. * * * Nearing the 
outer entrance I met Private Anthony, the 
orderly at the cabin door at the time. He 
ran in to me, as J remember, apologizing in 



Cuba at a Glance 17 

some fashion, and reported to me that the 
ship had been blown up and was sinking." 

Questioned as to the attitude of the Spanish 
officials in Havana previous to the explosion, 
Captain Sigsbee said: — 

"My relations with the officials were out- 
wardly cordial, and I had no ground for as- 
suming that they were not really cordial. 
* * * There was one hostile demonstra- 
tion by people afloat. It was the first Sunday 
after our arrival, on board a ferryboat densely 
crowded with people, both civil and military, 
who were returning to Havana from a bull 
fight in Regla. The demonstration consisted 
of yells, whistles, and apparently derisive calls 
emanating from about thirty or forty people 
at most. It was not general." 

After he had been questioned concerning 
the position of the Maine, the regular inspec- 
tion of its coal bunkers, of its inflammables 
and paints, its ash buckets, its electric plants, 
its magazines and shell rooms, the caution 
and the general discipline; and after Ensign 
VV. V. N. Powelson, U. S. N., government 
divers and mining experts had also testified, 
"the Court found — that the loss of the Maine 
on the occasion named was not in any respect 



1 8 Cuba at a Glance 

due to fault or negligence on the part of any 
of the officers of said vessel. 

"In the opinion of the Court the Maine was 
destroyed by the explosion of a submarine 
mine, which caused the partial explosion of 
two or more of her forward magazines. 

"The Court has been unable to obtain evi- 
dence fixing the responsibility for the destruc- 
tion of the Maine upon any person or persons." 

Sixty-six days after the loss of the battle 
ship and thirty-two days after the report of the 
Court, war was begun against Spain. Al- 
though the Court was unable to fix the re- 
sponsibility, the nation at large did not hesi- 
tate to assume that burden. In the ultima- 
tum that preceded the opening of hostilities 
there was no mention of the destruction of the 
two hundred and forty-six American sailors; 
still the battle cry of the war has been "Re- 
member the Maine!" 

The ultimatum sent to Spain on April 20, 
1898, consisted of three parts. The first ex- 
plained that the United States Congress de- 
manded the evacuation of Cuba by the Span- 
ish; the second, that the President had been 
directed by Congress to use the land and naval 
forces of the United States to enforce this de- 



Cuba at a Glance 19 

mand; and the third, that it was the Presi- 
dent's duty to request an answer within forty- 
eight hours. 

Within forty-eight hours the ultimatum had 
been rejected by the Cortes, and the United 
States was pledged to free Cuba. 






II. 



THAT was the state of Cuba that 
the United States Congress should 
command Spain's evacuation? 
Since October, 1896, 800,000 
peaceful Cubans, country people, have been 
driven from their homes and herded in the ad- 
jacent towns and cities, their dwellings burnt 
behind them. 

These were mainly women, children and old 
men. 

Four hundred thousand of them have died 
by starvation. 

The others are living skeletons, wandering 
through the towns begging. They are with- 
out money, without clothes, without tools and 
without strength. 

This was the result of General Weyler's or- 
der of concentration. The Spanish command- 
er had been annoyed by the aid given the in- 
surgent Cubans by the non-combatant coun- 
try people, the "pacificos." The rebels could 
count on food, clothing, horses and shelter 
from them. 



Cuba at a Glance 21 

By January, 1897, the country side was 
bare of asylums for the rebels and stripped of 
friends. The little thatch-roofed cottages of 
the peasants were in ashes. 

In the towns the reconcentrados, as the 
concentrated pacificos are called, were allotted 
fields for cultivation. These fields were never 
large enough for raising a sufficient product to 
support life. The reconcentrados were allot- 
ted no tools and no seed. They had no money 
to buy them. The gift of the fields thus be- 
came a mockery. Famine and all the dread 
diseases that accompany it spread ruin 
through their ranks. 

In July, 1897, the town of Chaseajaba con- 
tained two hundred and fifty reconcentrados. 
In October there were five left, three of them 
children. 

In one month, December, 1897, 1,300 recon- 
centrados in Mantanzas — more than one-tenth 
of the whole number there — died. 

In 1895 there were 60,000 Chinamen in 
Cuba. Now there are 10,000. 

In November, 1897, after Blanco succeeded 
Weyler as Captain General of Cuba, he made a 
feint of modifying the concentration order. 
The victims, however, were already too weak- 
ened and diseased to profit by it. 



22 Cuba at a Glance 

Cuba was no more "the fairest land that 
eyes had ever looked upon." 

Consular reports contained statistics of hor- 
rors. Sightseers told sickening tales of what 
they witnessed. Newspaper correspondents 
wrote columns descriptive of atrocities. 

Writing in 1897, Richard Harding Davis 
describes a state of affairs in Cardenas : — 

"I found the hospital for this colony behind 
three blankets which had been hung across a 
corner of the warehouse. A young woman 
and a man were lying side by side, the girl on a 
cot and the man on the floor. The others sat 
within a few feet of them on the other side of 
the blankets, apparently lost to all sense of 
their danger, and too dejected and hopeless to 
even raise their eyes when I gave them money. 

"A fat little doctor was caring for the sick 
woman, and he pointed through the cracks in 
the floor at the green slime below us, and held 
his fingers to his nose and shrugged his shoul- 
ders. I asked him what ailed his patients, and 
he said it was yellow fever, and pointed again 
at the slime, which moved and bubbled in the 
hot sun. 

"He showed me babies with the skin drawn 
so tightly over their little bodies that the 



Cuba at a Glance 23 

bones showed through as plainly as the rings 
under a glove. They were covered with sores, 
and they protested as loudly as they could 
against the treatment which the world was 
giving them, clinching their fists and sobbing 
with pain when the sore places came in contact 
with their mothers' arms. A planter who had 
at one time employed a large number of these 
people, and who was moving about among 
them, said that five hundred had died in Car- 
denas since the order to leave the fields had 
been issued. Another gentleman told me that 
in the huts at the back of the town there had 
been twenty-five cases of smallpox in one 

week, of which seventeen had resulted in death. 
* * # 

"Thousands of human beings are now herd- 
ed together around the seaport towns of Cuba, 
who cannot be fed, who have no knowledge of 
cleanliness or sanitation, who have no doctors 
to care for them and who cannot care for 
themselves. 

"Many of them are dying of sickness, and 
some of starvation, and this is the healthy sea- 
son. In April and May the rains will come, 
and the fever will thrive and spread, and chol- 
era, yellow fever and smallpox will turn Cuba 



24 Cuba at a Glance 

into one huge plague spot, and the farmers' 
sons whom Spain has sent over here to be 
soldiers, and who are dying by the dozens be- 
fore they have learned to pull the comb off a 
bunch of cartridges, are going to die by the 
hundreds, and women and children who are 
innocent of any offense will die with them, and 
there will be a quarantine against Cuba, and 
no vessel can come into her ports or leave 

them. 

* * # 

"In other wars men have fought with men, 
and women have suffered indirectly because 
the men were killed, but in this war it is the 
women, herded together in the towns like cat- 
tle, who are going to die, while the men, 
camped in the fields and the mountains, will 
live." 

A year later his testimony was practically 
repeated by an official committee from Con- 
gress. A commission, composed of Senator 
Thurston, of Nebraska, Senator Gallinger, of 
New Hampshire, Senator Money of Missis- 
sippi, Representative Amos J. Cummings of 
New York and Representative William Alden 
Smith of Michigan, visited Cuba and told what 
they saw. Their verdict was that "Weyler had 



Cuba at a Glance 25 

in the order of concentration devised a scheme 
of human suffering and sorrow that put Dan- 
te's 'Inferno' into the shade, and converted a 
contented, prosperous people into a herd of 
suffering, starving unfortunates." 

Senator Gallinger reported that he was as- 
sured by Miss Barton, leader of the Red Cross 
Relief Society, that the famine in Cuba was 
ten thousand times worse than that which had 
prevailed in India, Armenia or anywhere else. 

Senator Thurston, in his impassioned ap- 
peal to the United States Senate on March 24, 
said: — 

"For myself, I went to Cuba firmly believing 
the condition of affairs there had been greatly 
exaggerated by the press, and my own efforts 
were directed in the first instance to the at- 
tempted exposure of these supposed exagger- 
ations. 

"Mr. President, there has undoubtedly been 
much sensationalism in the journalism of the 
time, but as to the condition of affairs in Cuba 
there has been no exaggeration because ex- 
aggeration has been impossible. * * * The 
pictures in the American newspapers of the 
starving reconcentrados are true. They can 
all be duplicated by the thousands. I never 



26 Cuba at a Glance 

saw, and please God I may never again see, so 
deplorable a sight as the reconcentrados in the 
suburbs of Matanzas. I can never forget to 
my dying day the hopeless anguish in their de- 
spairing eyes. Huddled about their little bark 
huts, they raised no voice of appeal to us for 
alms as we went among them. 

"The government of Spain has not and will 
not appropriate one dollar to> save these peo- 
ple. They are now being attended and nursed 
and administered to- by the charity of the 
United States. Think of the spectacle! We 
ire feeding these citizens of Spain; we are nurs- 
ing their sick; we are saving such as can be 
saved; and yet there are those who still say, 
Tt is right for us to send food, but we must 
keep our hands off/ I say that the time has 
come when muskets ought to go with the 
food." 



III. 



THE condition of the reconcentra- 
dos as thus outlined might seem a 
sentimental cause of war. But the 
interest of the United States in 
Cuba has for a long time been more than sen- 
timental because of the vast commercial rela- 
tions between the two countries. It has been 
more than merely neighborly, because through 
her ill government of Cuba Spain has involved 
us in difficulties which give us just cause for 
complaint. 

When, after nearly half a century of turmoil 
and insurrection in Cuba, it became evident to 
the United States that the tranquillity neces- 
sary for prosperous trade could not be main- 
tained under Spanish rule, our purchase of the 
island was discussed. This was in 1848. 

The proposition met with warm support in 
the South, which, fearful of the growing in- 
fluence of the North and West, was anxious 
to increase the slaveholding area of the 
United States. President Polk made over- 



28 Cuba at a Glance 

tures to Spain for the purchase of Cuba for 
$100,000,000, which Spain declined. 

From this time Spain's attitude toward the 
United States in regard to Cuba was distinct- 
ly unfriendly. The affair of the Black War- 
rior in 1850 showed the hostile spirit. 

The Black Warrior, a steamer owned in New 
York, was accustomed, in making monthly 
trips between New York and Mobile, to touch 
at Havana to leave and receive mail and pas- 
sengers, but not to discharge or take on 
freight. She had been given, in April, 1847, 
a paper signed by Cuban authorities relieving 
her of the necessity of exhibiting at each land- 
ing a manifest of her cargo. In spite of this 
permit she was arrested in 1850 in Havana 
Harbor for having an undeclared cargo on 
board, although she had thirty-six times pre- 
viously entered under the same conditions 
with the consent of the revenue officers. The 
cargo was seized and put on shore and the 
vessel fined. Captain Bullock, commanding 
officer, refused to pay the fine and entered a 
formal protest against the seizure. For this 
outrage Spain was eventually forced to pay 
the Black Warrior's owners $300,000. 

This incident is illustrative of the system of 



Cuba at a Glance 29 

petty annoyances to which Spain subjected 
America. It included the search of American 
vessels by Spanish cruisers on the high seas 
and the arrest of American citizens in Cuba 
on trumped-up political charges. 

Our Ministers to England, France, Spain — 
James Buchanan, J. G. Mason and Pierre 
Soule — held, in 1854, a conference to propose a 
plan to our State Department which should 
end our difficulties. Their scheme was set 
forth in the Ostend Manifesto. In it they 
declared: — 

"We have arrived at the conclusion, and 
are thoroughly convinced, that an immediate 
and earnest effort ought to be made by the 
government of the United States to purchase 
Cuba from Spain at any price for which it can 
be obtained, not exceeding the sum of $120,- 
000,000. 

"The Union can never enjoy repose nor 
possess reliable security as long as Cuba is not 
embraced within its boundaries. 

"Its immediate acquisition by our govern- 
ment is of paramount importance, and we can- 
not doubt that it is a consummation devoutly 
wished for by its inhabitants. 

"The intercourse which its proximity to our 



30 Cuba at a Glance 

coast begets and encourages between them 
and the citizens of the United States has in 
the progress of time so united their interests 
and blended their fortunes that they now look 
upon each other as if they were one people and 

had but one destiny/' 

* # * 

"Cuba has thus become to us an unceasing 
danger and a permanent cause of anxiety and 

alarm.' , 

# * * 

"After we have offered Spain a price for 
Cuba far beyond its present value and this 
shall have been refused, it will then be time to 
consider the question, 'Does Cuba in the pos- 
session of Spain seriously endanger our inter- 
nal peace and the existence of our cherished 
Union?' 

"Should this question be answered in the 
affirmative, then by every law, human and 
divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from 
Spain if we possess the power; and this upon 
the very same principle that would justify an 
individual in tearing down the burning house 
of his neighbor if there were no other means 
of preventing the flames from destroying his 
own home." 



Cuba at a Glance 31 

Any action which the United States might 
have taken upon this manifesto was indefinite- 
ly deferred by the increase of her own political 
agitations, which finally culminated in the 
Civil War. 

By the time the United States had ended 
the Civil War and re-established peace the 
Cubans were engaged in their ten years' 
struggle against Spain. During this occurred 
two events, one shocking to humanity and 
civilization, one a direct outrage upon Amer- 
ica. The first was "The Affair of the Stu- 
dents.'' The tomb of a member of the Cuban 
Volunteers, the powerful militia organization 
of Spanish loyalists in Havana, had been de- 
faced. Suspicion pointed to the students of 
Havana University. Forty-three of these 
young men were tried for the offense on the 
complaint of the Volunteers, and were acquit- 
ted. The Volunteers then induced the Gov- 
ernor General to order a retrial, at which two- 
thirds of the jury should be from their own 
number. This court, of course, condemned 
the accused. Eight were sentenced to be 
shot, and on November 27, 1871, 15,000 Vol- 
unteers assembled to do the shooting. 

Two years later came the Virginius out- 



32 Cuba at a Glance 

rage. The Virginius was a steamer chartered 
as belonging to John F. Patterson, an Amer- 
ican citizen. She flew the American colors 
and was cleared as an American merchant- 
man. She cruised in the Caribbean Sea. In 
October, 1873, she was seen off the coast of 
Cuba. She was chased by the Spanish cruiser 
Tornado along the coast of Santiago. On 
November 1st she was captured and brought 
into the port of Santiago de Cuba as a pirate 
ship. Of her hundred and fifty-five passen- 
gers forty-five had Anglo-Saxon names, the 
rest Spanish. But Captain Joseph Fry 
claimed for all protection as American citi- 
zens. Not only did he, but also E. G. 
Schmitt, vice-consul at Santiago, protest 
against the detention of the vessel. Mr. 
Schmitt's communications to the Governor 
of the province were disregarded and he him- 
self virtually insulted. His messages were left 
unanswered, because, the Governor said, "Be- 
ing engaged, as well as every one else, in med- 
itation of the divine mysteries of All Saints' 
and the commemoration of All Souls' days, as 
prescribed by our holy religion, it was impos- 
sible for me until early this morning to com- 
ply with your wishes." 



Cuba at a GJance 33 

Mr. Schmitt was also refused the use of 
the marine cable to consult, as he desired, 
with the United States Consul at Kingston. 
Fifty-three of the Virginius' party were exe- 
cuted, among them Captain Fry. After being 
shot down, their bodies were beheaded, and 
the heads were displayed on spikes, while their 
trunks were trampled on by horses. 

The night before his miserable death Cap- 
tain Fry wrote his wife an interesting descrip- 
tion of Spanish etiquette. 

"I have been tried to-day, and the President 
of the Court Martial asked me the favor of 
embracing me at parting and clasped me to 
his heart. * * * Each of my judges and 
the secretary of the court and interpreter have 
promised me as a special favor to attend my 
execution. * * * I am told that my death 
will be painless; in short, I have had a very 
pleasant and cheerful chat about my funeral, 
to which I shall go in a few hours from now. 
* * * It is curious to see how I make 
friends. The priest who gave me communion 
this morning put a double scapula about my 
neck. A young Spanish officer brought me a 
bright new silk badge with the Blessed Virgin 
stamped upon it to wear to my execution for 



34 Cuba at a Glance 

him and a handsome cross in some fair lady's 
handiwork. He embraced me affectionately 
with tears in his eyes. * * *" 

Then, even as in these latter days, an Amer- 
ican newspaper correspondent, George Sher- 
man, for trying to sketch the execution scene, 
was punished with imprisonment. 

How far the slaughter of the Virginius' pas- 
sengers would have continued but for the ac- 
tion of the British war ship Niobe it is im- 
possible to say. The Niobe, under Sir Hamp- 
ton Lorraine, sailed from Kingston, Jamaica, 
to Santiago and threatened to bombard the 
town if the outrages were not immediately 
stopped. Indignation throughout the United 
States was intense, and diplomatic relations 
between it and Spain were almost ruptured. 
General Sickles, the United States Minister at 
Madrid, demanded his passports, but. Spain 
backed down, and the Virginius, with the re- 
mainder of her passengers, was surrendered to 
the United States. Indemnities were paid to 
families of the American subjects who had 
suffered death at Santiago. 

This was not the only maritime difficulty 
between Spain and this country during the 
Ten Years' War. In 1877 the Ellen Rizpah, 
the Rising Sun, and the Edward Lee, all flying 



Cuba at a Glance 35 

the American flag and engaged in their legiti- 
mate pursuits outside of Cuban waters, were 
fired upon by a Spanish war ship and detained 
for days with circumstances of peculiar hard- 
ship and brutality. Spain was forced to pay 
an aggregate indemnity of $10,000 to their 
owners. 

In 1875 both President Grant and Secretary 
of State Fish made statements concerning our 
difficulties with Spain. 

President Grant, in his message to Con- 
gress in 1875, refers to the American inter- 
ests as follows : — 

"The property of our citizens in Cuba is 
large and is rendered insecure and depreciated 
in value and in capacity of production by the 
continuance of the strife and the unnatural 
mode of its conduct." 

Secretary Fish, in a letter to Caleb Cushing, 
then Minister to Spain, wrote: — 

"This struggle (the Ten Years' War) has 
disturbed our tranquillity and commerce, has 
called upon us not infrequently to witness bar- 
barous violations of the rules of civilized war- 
fare, and compelled us, for the sake of human- 
ity, to raise our voice by way of protest. 

"The world is witnessing on the part of the 
insurgents, whom Spain still claims as sub- 



36 Cuba at a Glance 

jeets, and for whose acts, as subjects, Spain 
must be held accountable in the judgment of 
the world, a warfare, not of the legitimate 
strife of relative force and strength, but of pil- 
lage and incendiarism, the burning of estates 
and sugar mills, the destruction of the means 
of production and of the wealth of the island. 

"The United States purchases more largely 
than any other people of the productions of 
the island of Cuba, and therefore, more than 
any other for this reason, and still more by 
reason of its immediate neighborhood, is in- 
terested in the arrest of a system of wanton 
destruction which disgraces the age and af- 
fects every commercial people on the face of 
the globe. 

"The United States has exerted itself to the 
utmost, for seven years, to repress unlawful 
acts on the part of self exiled subjects of Spain, 
relying on the promise of Spain to pacify the 
island. Seven years of strain on the powers 
of this government to fulfil all that the most 
exacting demands that one government can 
make, under any doctrine or claim of interna- 
tional obligation, upon another, have not wit- 
nessed the much hoped for pacification. The 
United States feels itself entitled to be relieved 
of this strain." 



IV. 



THE "unlawful acts" on the part of 
Spain's subjects to which the letter 
of Secretary Fish referred meant, 
of course, the conspiracies of Cu- 
bans hatched in the United States, the raising 
of forces and the collection of materials for in- 
surrection here. Briefly, the United States 
had to perform detective and policeman duty 
for Spain to prevent the setting out of filibus- 
tering expeditions to Cuba. During the pres- 
ent war of Cuba against Spain the duty has 
been as irksome as it was in Grant's adminis- 
tration, and it has sometimes led to serious in- 
ternational complications. 

In March, 1895, the' Allianca, bound from 
Colon to New York, following the customary 
track for vessels near the Cuban shore, but 
outside the three-mile limit, was fired upon 
by a Spanish gunboat. The United States 
protest was this time immediately heeded and 
the act disavowed by Spain. 

In April, 1896, the schooner Competitor, 



38 Cuba at a Glance 

with twenty-five or thirty men and a cargo of 
arms and ammunition for the rebels, sailed 
from Key West for Havana. On the coast of 
Cuba, about sixty miles west of that part, the 
Spanish launch Mensejara captured the 
schooner. Some of the filibusters had already 
landed. Others tried to swim ashore. Two of 
these were killed. Alfred Laborde, an Ameri- 
can, was captured on a reef which he had 
gained. Four men — two Cubans, Bedia and 
Maza; an Englishman, James Kildea, and an 
American, a Jacksonville newspaper corre- 
spondent, Owen Milton — were captured on 
the ship. They were court-martialed and sen- 
tenced to be shot. 

A storm of protest arose. England and the 
United States demanded civil trials for their 
subjects. Captain-General Weyler raged at 
the interference with his authority, but Prime 
Minister Canovas, in Madrid, granted the stay 
of execution required by England and Amer- 
ica. Eventually the men were all released. 
That occurred on January 23, 1897, "the 
King's Saint Day," when all American polit- 
ical prisoners in Cuba were liberated under 
promise to give no further aid to the insur- 
gents. 



Cuba at a Glance 39 

The Competitor prisoners formed but a 
small part of the American colony in Cuba's 
jails at various times during the troubled 
years since the outbreak of the war, in 1894. 
Jules Sanguilly, a native Cuban but a natural- 
ized American since 1878, was arrested in Feb- 
ruary, 1895, charged with rebellion. He was 
found guilty and sentenced to life imprison- 
ment. In February, 1897, he was pardoned 
on the condition that he should leave the 
island. 

Gaspar Betancourt, a naturalized American, 
was charged in January, 1897, with aiding the 
rebels, imprisoned 288 hours in solitary con- 
finement, contrary to treaty, and was finally 
released in February, 1897. 

Frank Agramonte, of New York, was ar- 
rested in May, 1895, charged with conspiracy 
against Spain. Secure in innocence and confi- 
dent of acquittal, he gave himself up. For two 
years he was imprisoned at Santiago de Cuba 
without trial. He did not obtain his freedom 
until October, 1897. 

A companion of Agramonte — Thomas 
Sainz — had suffered in the same way on the 
same charge. 

The Rev. Albert Diaz and his brother were 



40 Cuba at a Glance 

arrested on April 16, 1896, tried and deported 
to the United States on April 22. 

American citizens having possessions or bus- 
iness in Cuba suffered also under the Weyler 
regime. 

In September, 1896, Peter E. Rivery, an 
American planter having a coffee estate near 
St. Luis, in Pinar del Rio province, had his 
property partly destroyed and was himself 
threatened with death by Spanish troops. 

William and Louis A. Glean, owners of a 
sugar estate in Sagua la Grande, were arrested 
in September, 1896, and thrown into prison 
without being allowed to communicate with 
the American Consul, with lawyers or with 
witnesses. They were charged with keeping 
arms for the insurgents. Their servants were 
tortured to induce them to testify against their 
employers — a device which failed. While they 
were in prison their estate was burned by 
Spanish troops, so that at the time of their 
release they were practically penniless. 

Henry W. McDonnell, of Alabama, a plant- 
er owning a plantation also near Havana, visit- 
ed his property in Cuba in February, 1897. 
Finding that his possessions had suffered con- 
siderably at the hands of the Spanish soldiers, 



Cuba at a Glance 41 

he criticized Spanish methods with great 
frankness. He was immediately hauled be- 
fore the authorities, his passports seized by 
General Weyler and he himself arrested. He 
was finally released at the demand of Consul 
General Lee. 

Most tragic of all was the death of Dr. Ri- 
cardo Ruiz, an American dentist. He was ar- 
rested early in February, 1897, on the charge 
of being a rebel sympathizer. He was thrown 
into a foul cell in a suburban Havana jail and 
was not permitted intercourse with counsel or 
with his family for thirteen days. The requests 
of Consul General Lee for information con- 
cerning the charges on which Ruiz was held 
were ignored or evasively answered. On the 
fourteenth day after his imprisonment he was 
found dead. It was obvious that he had been 
tortured to obtain a confession after the usual 
Spanish method and that his death was the re- 
sult of the treatment. 

These and similar outrages against Amer- 
ican citizens in Cuba led to the filing in April, 
1898, of claims against Spain for $16,000,000 
damages for personal injury, imprisonment, 
loss of stock, burning of sugar plantations, &c. 

Within the last two years, for the high 



42 Cuba at a Glance 

crime of giving authentic information to the 
American press, the following American 
newspaper correspondents were arrested, im- 
prisoned or deported: 

William Mannix, Sylvester Scovel, Charles 
Michelson, Lorenzo Betancourt, Elbert Rap- 
pelje, James Creelman, Frederick W. Law- 
rence, William W. Gay, Thomas R. Dawley, 
C. B. Pendleton, Theodore Pous and George 
Bronson. 

Charles Govin, a correspondent for a Flor- 
ida paper, was brutally murdered by the Span- 
ish troops under Colonel Ochoa, into whose 
hands he fell after they had had an engage- 
ment with the Cubans. His passports and his 
correspondent's certificate were examined, 
thrown aside, and at a wave of Ochoa's hand 
Govin was bound and riddled with bullets. 



V. 



JUAN A, Fernandina, Santiago, Ave 
Maria — thus was the Island of Cuba 
successively christened by the Span- 
iards. 
"Cuba" itself is from Cubanan. It means 
what it has always been to the Spanish — the 
place of gold. 

1492, the discovery of America, is also the 
date of the discovery of Cuba. For four cen- 
turies the Island of Cuba has been governed 
by the Cortes of Madrid — 7,000 miles away. 
Not until 151 1, however, did the Spanish 
think it worth while to colonize. They did 
not establish a settlement there until they 
thought they had exhausted the wealth of 
the neighboring island of Hayti. Then, be- 
lieving there was no more gold in Hayti's 
mines, they sent a band of 300 men under 
Diego Velasquez to make a settlement in 
Cuba. 

Diego Velasquez and his men found the 
natives peaceable, happy and contented and 



44 Cuba at a Glance 

under the government of nine independent 
chiefs. As Columbus wrote to Ferdinand and 
Isabella after his first experience with the 
West Indians: "The people are so affection- 
ate, so tractable and so peaceable that I swear 
to Your Highnesses that there is not a better 
race of men nor a better country in the 
world. They love their neighbor as them- 
selves; their conversation is the sweetest and 
mildest in the world, cheerful and always ac- 
companied by a smile. And, although it is 
true that they go naked, yet Your Highness- 
es may be assured they have many commenda- 
ble customs." 

The reputation gained by the Spaniards in 
151 1 has never been forfeited. It was then 
that Hatuey, a native chieftain, who had op- 
posed the Dons, was tied to a stake with fag- 
ots piled about him. While the flames rose 
a Franciscan monk held a crucifix before him 
and told him the beauties of the Christian 
faith. 

"Be sorry for your sins," he cried, "and gain 
a place in heaven." 

"Where is heaven?" asked Hatuey, "and 
are there Spaniards there?" 

The priest answered that there were many. 



Cuba at a Glance 45 

"Then," cried Hatuey, "pray let me go some- 
where else." 

The subjugation of the natives by Velas- 
quez was quick. Without the loss of a man 
he took possession of the island — a posses- 
sion that has endured almost uninterruptedly 
for nearly four centuries. 

The natives were allotted to the settlers in 
gangs of about three hundred to each Span- 
iard. They were employed in the cultivation of 
the soil, but it was soon found that they were 
not strong enough for such field work as the 
colonists would have imposed upon them. 

Negro slaves from Spain, where for a con- 
siderable time slavery had existed, were there- 
fore imported. 

The first settlement established by the 
Spaniards was Santiago, on the southeast 
coast, for a long time Cuba's capital. The 
next was Trinidad, on the eastern shore. San 
Cristobal de la Rabana was the third, founded 
in 151 5. It is now called Batabano and is di- 
rectly opposite Havana on the eastern coast. 

Four years later the name of Havana was 
given to the present capital. 

One of the first Governors sent by Spain to 
this colony was Hernando de Soto, famed in 



46 Cuba at a Glance 

American history as the discoverer of the M is- 
sissippi. 

In 1538 Havana had been set on fire by a 
French privateer. To guard against the rep- 
etition of such a disaster, de Soto erected a 
fortress. It was called the Castillo de la 
Fuerza. 

In 1553 Havana, which had gained consid- 
erably in importance by the transfer of the 
Governor's residence from Santiago, was at- 
tacked and partially destroyed by the French. 

A year later it was plundered by pirates. 

In 1585, being again seriously menaced by 
the English, under Drake, two more fort- 
resses were built. They were named the Bat- 
eria de la Punta and the Castillo del Morro. 
These still guard the entrance to Havana. 

During the reign of Philip III. the sugar 
and tobacco industries grew in importance in 
Cuba. This was due to the expulsion of the 
Moors from Spain and the consequent cessa- 
tion of their cultivation in Spain. 

During all this period Spain imposed heavy 
trade restriction upon Cuba. The island could 
sell its products to no other country. It could 
buy what it needed from no other country. 
Seville was the only Spanish port with which 



Cuba at a Glance 47 

the island was allowed to trade. The natural 
result was extensive smuggling carried on be- 
tween the colonists and foreign adventurers. 

The men with whom Cuba carried on this 
illegal commerce had their headquarters in 
the bays of Hayti, which had been almost de- 
serted by that time for the more attractive 
country of Cuba. The Haytians who were 
left lived mainly on the flesh of cattle, which 
they smoked by a peculiar process called 
bucanning. The smugglers, copying this way 
of preserving meat for use on shipboard, came 
to be known as "buccaneers." 

For over 150 years these buccaneers har- 
rassed the Spanish. They were encouraged by 
all other nations antagonistic to the Spanish. 
They were even commissioned by other coun- 
tries as privateers. They sailed the Spanish 
main — the waters surrounding the West In- 
dies — stopping Spanish ships and interfering 
with Spanish commerce. When in 1655 Eng- 
land gained Jamaica they grew even more dar- 
ing and more powerful. Jamaica became the 
headquarters, whence they issued not only to 
plunder vessels upon the high seas, but even 
to ravage the cities and the mainland of Cuba. 
In 1 67 1 one of them — Henry Morgan — was 
knighted by Great Britain for his exploits. 



48 Cuba at a Glance 

As a protection in the midst of the depreda- 
tions of this gentry Havana was fortified by 
walls. The magnificent harbor could only be 
entered by stealth or by force. In 1697 the 
European Powers set the seal of general con- 
demnation upon the buccaneers. The Cu- 
ban settlements revived materially and grew 
in importance. 

In 171 3 the opening of the new era in Spain 
by the ending of the Hapsburg rule and the 
establishment of the Bourbons was felt in Cu- 
ba. The agricultural wealth had begun to 
make a showing. A new policy was adopted. 
The tobacco trade was made a royal monop- 
oly. Out of this measure a serious clashing 
between the colonists and the mother coun- 
try ensued. The monoply was violently op- 
posed. Constant friction and bloody encoun- 
ters between the Cuban and the Spanish mili- 
tia were engendered. Systematic smuggling, 
mainly by British traders in Jamaica, again 
resulted. Another Anglo-Spanish war fol- 
lowed and ended in a general European one. 

In the thirteen years of peace that followed 
the cessation of hostilities in 1748 smuggling 
in Cuba grew beyond control and Spain was 
forced to give up the tobacco monopoly. 



Cuba at a Glance 49 

British power grew in America. France 
and Spain were anxiously jealous of England, 
and Cuba felt that at any moment she might 
become a scene of depredation in the general 
conflict of European nations. 



VI. 



IN 1762 Cuba's expectations were 
realized. Havana was besieged by 
the English. 
All Europe, practically, was in- 
volved in the struggle known as the Seven 
Years' War. In January of 1762 hostilities 
were declared against Spain. In the summer 
Lord Albermarle was sent against Havana 
with a fleet of 200 ships and a force of 14,041 
men. 

In this force were some whose names appear 
later in the pages of American history. The 
British Colonies in America contributed their 
share of soldiers for the siege. Lawrence 
Washington, a brother of George, served in 
the expedition. New Jersey, New York and 
Connecticut sent 2,300 men. General Lyman 
and Israel Putnam were among them, the lat- 
ter gaining military training which afterward 
proved valuable to him when he took up arms 
against the British. The American loss was 



Cuba at a Glance 51 

heavy. Few of the Colonial troops, either offi- 
cers or men, ever returned. Most of those 
whom the Spanish guns spared were killed by 
sickness. 

The defence was stubbornly conducted. 
Spain had a force of 27,610 men in the city. 
Among them was a body which has been a 
feature of military life in Cuba ever since that 
time — the Cuban Volunteers. This organiza- 
tion has always been allied with the Spanish 
party in Cuba. At the time of the British 
siege there was, of course, no other party. The 
brilliant work of the Volunteers during this 
obstinate ten months' struggle gave them 
their first glory. 

In spite of the larger force of the Spanish, 
the English were successful. The captors 
seized $3,680,925, which was divided among 
them. 

During the English occupation of Cuba the 
island enjoyed the first progressive and liberal 
rule it had known. Its ports were opened to 
free commerce. 

The sanitary condition of Havana had been 
up to that time a disgrace to even the primi- 
tive sanitary science of the age. Under the 
English rule improvements were begun which, 



52 Cuba at a Glance 

if they had been continued, might have left 
the region free in great part from the yellow 
fever plague which menaces the island each 
year, and which is due largely to municipal 
uncleanliness. 

Roads were opened up all over the island. 
An era of modern prosperity seemed almost 
begun, when Spain again became owner of 
Cuba, the Pearl of the Antilles. 

This happened in February, 1763. England 
gave Cuba back to Spain in return for Florida. 

But it was impossible for Spanish rule to 
undo the good work of the English completely 
and at once. One of the first Governors under 
the new Spanish regime happened — and this 
was an unusual occurrence^to have the inter- 
ests of the Cubans at heart as much as those of 
Spain. He was Luis de Las Casas. He was 
made Governor in 1 790. He encouraged trade 
with the young Republic just established in 
America. It was about this time that sugar 
became an important article of trade, though 
not even then universally used. It was sold at 
forty-three cents a pound, a price which pro- 
hibited its use in large quantities. But it was 
becoming a large factor in commercial rela- 
tions, and the generous policy of Las Casas 



Cuba at a Glance 53 

toward the United States helped largely in de- 
veloping the industry in Cuba. 

Another act that endeared Las Casas to 
Americans was the removal of the body of Co- 
lumbus from Hayti, where it had been en- 
tombed, and the placing of it in Havana Ca- 
thedral. 

Las Casas was succeeded in 1796 by the 
Count of Santa Clara. He also proved to be a 
man of just and liberal ideas. Most of the for- 
tifications which guard the island now were 
erected by him. The Bateria de Santa Clara, 
outside Havana, was built by him and named 
in his honor. 

Perhaps it was a result of the beneficent pol- 
icies of these two Goverors that Cuba became 
confirmed in her allegiance to Spain. When 
Napoleon in 1808 deposed the Bourbon King, 
Ferdinand VII., and placed his own brother, 
Joseph, on the Spanish throne, every member 
of the Provincial Council of Cuba declared un- 
waveringly loyalty to the old dynasty. For 
this it was called "The Ever Faithful Isle," a 
title which has proved its only reward for its 
allegiance, although a more substantial one 
was promised at the time by the Provisional 
Government at Seville. This body, acting for 



54 



Cuba at a Glance 



the deposed Bourbons, promised that all Span- 
ish subjects everywhere should have equal 
rights. 

How the promise to "The Ever Faithful 
Isle" was kept is an interesting lesson in Span- 
ish diplomacy. 



VII 



CHAPTER VII. 

IN 1813 Bonaparte Joseph was de- 
posed and Ferdinand VII. was re- 
stored to Spain. He began his new 
rule by ignoring the constitution, 
dissolving the Cortes and making himself an 
absolute monarch. The American colonies 
felt his despotic yoke again. 

In 1809 and 1810 Buenos Ayres, Venezuela 
and Peru started rebellions against Spanish 
authority, which ended after several years in 
their complete independence. The Spanish 
loyalists from these countries flocked to Cuba 
and expected to be retainers of the Crown at 
Cuba's expense. Then Spain attempted to 
make Cuba a military station from which she 
could direct operations against the new repub- 
lics, which she wished to reconquer. The 
troops sent for this purpose to Cuba disliked 
their mission, the colonists were ill-satisfied 
with the government, and the general discon- 
tent gave birth to numerous secret political so- 



56 Cuba at a Glance 

cieties. The insurrections planned by these 
associations soon aroused the interest of the 
United States in Cuban affairs. 

The first open revolt was in 1820. Its lead- 
ers proclaimed as the governing law of Cuba 
the liberal constitution granted by the Provi- 
sional Government of Seville when Ferdinand 
was deposed. It took two years of discord and 
rebellion to force the King to yield. 

The next revolution planned was that of the 
Soles de Bolivar, in 1823. It purposed to es- 
tablish a Cuban republic. The rising was to 
take place simultaneously in several cities on 
the island, but the purposes of the society be- 
came known to the government, and on the 
very day when independence was to be de- 
clared the leaders were imprisoned. 

In 1825 the King, possibly to discourage 
revolution, defined the powers of the Captain 
Generals of Cuba in this way: he gave to 
them "the fullest authority toi send away from 
the island any persons in office, whatever their 
occupation, rank, class or condition, whose 
continuance therein they might deem injuri- 
ous, or whose conduct, public or private, 
might alarm them, replacing them with per- 
sons faithful to His Majesty." 



Cuba at a Glance 57 

As a result of this the "Black Eagle Society" 
formed a second invading expedition, with 
headquarters in Mexico, and recruiting agen- 
cies in the United States. Again the ringlead- 
ers were caught by the Spanish authorities, as 
their predecessors of the Soles de Bolivar had 
been. 

In 1844 occurred an uprising so barbarously 
quelled by Spain as to show that she had not 
left behind her the days of the Inquisition. The 
slaves on the sugar plantations about Matan- 
zas were suspected of being ready to revolt. 
Absolute proof being lacking, they were tor- 
tured for evidence. One thousand three hun- 
dred and forty-six persons were tried by Inqui- 
sition methods and convicted. Seventy-eight 
were shot ; punishment of various degrees was 
inflicted upon the others. 

The next conspiracy was headed by Narciso 
Lopez, a native Venezuelan, who had served in 
the Spanish army. In 1848 he started a revo- 
lutionary movement which was unsuccessful. 
He escaped to New York, bringing many of his 
allies with him. There he succeeded in aug- 
menting the sympathy already aroused and in 
establishing a movement for practical aid. In 
1849 he attempted to return to Cuba with a 



58 Cuba at a Glance 

small party, but was intercepted by the United 
States authority. A year later, having or- 
ganized his forces outside of United States ju- 
risdiction, he succeeded in reaching Cuba with 
600 men. In spite of his persistency he was 
compelled to re-embark and was chased by a 
Spanish war ship to Key West, where his party 
disbanded. 

Still undaunted by failure, the next year 
found Lopez starting from New Orleans for 
Cuba with a regiment of 450 men. Second in 
command to himself was Colonel Crittenden, 
of Kentucky, a West Point man, who had won 
his title in the Mexican War. Landing in 
Cuba, the forces were divided, 130 men under 
Crittenden remaining on the shore to guard 
the supplies, while Lopez with the rest pushed 
on into the interior. Both parties were sur- 
rounded by the Spanish. Crittenden's force, 
when it had been reduced to fifty men, was cap- 
tured and destroyed. Lopez and his detach- 
ment were all captured, and Lopez himself 
shot. 

This attempt aroused the greatest sympathy 
in this country, both on account of Lopez, who 
had become well known, and because of the 
death of Crittenden. 



Cuba at a Glance 59 

An expedition led by General Quitman, of 
Mississippi, two years later, to assist Cuban 
patriots, seemed to have a chance of success 
because of its adequate supply of men and 
arms, but the United States interfered. The 
American expedition was abandoned and the 
native patriots shot. 

The details of these revolts were not without 
importance to the United States. They inter- 
fered with our commercial interests in Cuba, 
which had grown large. They forced us to> be 
on guard against Cuban conspirators and 
against filibustering expeditions. But the 
most important result of Spain's determina- 
tion to use Cuba as a ground for the recon- 
quering of her former American possessions 
was the formulation of the Monroe Doctrine. 
In 1823 France and Spain formed what they 
were pleased to term a Holy Alliance, with the 
object of resubjugating the Spanish posses- 
sions. President Monroe said that "any at- 
tempt by a European power to gain dominion 
in America would be regarded by the United 
States as an unfriendly act." England, by her 
recognition of the Spanish-American repub- 
lics, reinforced the United States in her atti- 
tude, and thus the Monroe Doctrine became 
established as a feature of international law. 



VIII. 



SPAIN, in 1868, was in the throes of an 
internal struggle, in the course of 
which Queen Isabella was forced to 
flee. Cuba did not then, as she 
had done sixty years before, when Napo- 
leon deposed the Bourbons, proclaim her loy- 
alty to her sovereigns. She had learned how 
Spain rewarded loyalty, and she took advan- 
tage of the trouble in the Peninsula to begin a 
revolution on the island as the only means by 
which she could obtain redress for her griev- 
ances. 

Her grievances were many. In the Edin- 
burgh Review of 1873 they were stated as fol- 
lows : — 

"Spain governs the island of Cuba with an 
iron and blood-stained hand. The former 
holds the latter deprived of political, civil and 
religious liberties. Hence the unfortunate Cu- 
bans being illegally prosecuted and sent into 
exile, or executed by military commissions in 
times of peace; hence their being kept from 



Cuba at a Glance 61 

public meetings, and forbidden to speak or 
write on affairs of State; hence their remon- 
strances against the evils that afflict them be- 
ing looked upon as the proceedings of rebels, 
from the fact that they are obliged to keep si- 
lence and obey; hence the never-ending plague 
of hungry officials from Spain to devour the 
product of their industry and labor; hence 
their exclusion from the art of government; 
hence, the restrictions to which public in- 
struction with them is subjected in order to 
keep them so ignorant as not to be able to 
know and enforce their rights in any shape 
or form whatever; hence the navy and the 
standing army, which are kept in their coun- 
try at an enormous expenditure from their 
own wealth to make them bend their knees 
and submit their necks to the iron yoke that 
disgraces them; hence the grinding taxation 
under which they labor and which would 
make them all perish in misery but for the 
marvellous fertility of their soil." 

The annual revenue demanded by Spain 
from Cuba up to the time of the beginning of 
the war was about $26,000,000. This rev- 
enue, of course, was not used to Cuba's ad- 
vantage. The Captain General — always a 



62 Cuba at a Glance 

Spaniard — received a salary of $50,000 a year, 
with perquisites; the provincial governors — 
always Spaniards — $12,000 each, with perquis- 
ites; the two archbishops — always Spaniards 
— $18,000, with perquisites. As will be seen, 
there was no chance for native Cubans. Even 
the lowest offices were given by Spanish poli- 
ticians to their friends. Naturally great bit- 
terness between the Insulars, or native Cu- 
bans, and the Peninsulars, or Spaniards in 
Cuba, was aroused. 

Spain still had almost a monopoly of trade 
to Cuba and forced the Cubans to pay the 
highest taxes on all the necessities of life. 
Wheaten bread, under the heavy duty im- 
posed on flour, ceased to be an article of com- 
mon diet on the island. 

An unheard of rate was charged on postage, 
so that a native Cuban receiving a prepaid let- 
ter at his own door had to pay 37 1-2 cents 
additional postage. 

While the Spaniards paid $3.23 per capita 
of interest on their national debt, the Cubans 
paid $6.39, although they had some of its 
benefits. 

In 1868, when it was proposed still further 
to tax them, they rose in arms. On October 



Cuba at a Glance 63 

10th Carlos M. de Cespedes, a lawyer of Bay- 
amo, with 128 poorly equipped men, issued a 
declaration of independence on the plantation 
of Yara, and within a few weeks he was at 
the head of 10,000 men, badly armed but de- 
termined. By April, 1869, a constitution for 
a republican form of government was drawn 
up. It provided for a president, vice presi- 
dent, cabinet and a legislature. It abolished 
slavery, and under it Cespedes was elected 
president, Francisco Aguilero vice president, 
and a legislature convened. 

The war had been in progress six months, 
the advantages being with the insurgents un- 
der General Quesada. Every Cuban who did 
fall into the hands of the Spaniards was shot 
on the spot. The Spanish General, the Count 
of Valmaseda, issued a proclamation outlining 
his plan of warfare. He said: — 

"The reinforcements of troops that I have 
been waiting for have arrived. With them 
I shall give protection to the good and punish 
promptly all those that still remain in rebel- 
lion against the government of the metropo- 
lis. 

"1st. — Every man, from the age of fifteen 
years upward, found away from his habitation, 



64 Cuba at a Glance 

who does not prove a justified motive there- 
for, will be shot. 

"2d. — Every habitation unoccupied will be 
burned by the troops. 

"3d. — Every habitation from which does 
not float a white flag as a signal that its occu- 
pants desire peace will be reduced to ashes. 

"Women that are not living at their own 
homes or at the houses of their relatives will 
collect in the town of Jiguane or Bayamo, 
where maintenance will be provided. Those^ 
who do not present themselves will be con- 
ducted forcibly.'' 

This proclamation raised a gale of protest 
among civilized nations, but nevertheless 
these were the Spanish tactics throughout the 
war. 

Until 1 87 1 the insurgents kept the field 
with a force of about fifty thousand men. 
They were constantly victorious in engage- 
ments, but the Spanish resources were greater, 
and finally the insurgents were driven into a 
sort of guerilla-like warfare. There were rov- 
ing bands of insurgents that harassed and 
damaged, but did not actually meet the Span- 
ish troops. The Cuban climate proved an act- 
ive ally of the Cubans in disposing of the en- 



Cuba at a Glance 65 

emy. The war became a desultory sort of 
struggle. By 1876 145,000 soldiers and 
Spain's best commanders had been sent to 
Cuba and had not yet subdued the rebels, who 
were invincible in the eastern part of the isl- 
and, although they could take no cities. Cu- 
ban crops had been ruined and Cuban trade 
decreased. Spain had wasted money and men, 
losing about eighty thousand of her land 
forces. Taxes had been trebled. By 1878 
both sides were ready for peace, which was 
the result of promised compromise and con- 
cessions rather than of victory on either side. 

General Martinez de Campos, who was the 
Spanish commander at that time, made over- 
tures to the Cubans under Maximo Gomez. 
The result was the treaty of El Zanjon, Feb- 
ruary 10, 1878. This treaty promised Cuba 
representation in the Spanish Cortes and 
granted a general pardon to all who had taken 
any part, directly or indirectly, in the revolu- 
tionary movement. 



IX 



THE most important element in the 
treaty of El Zanjon promised Cuba 
representation in the Cortes at 
Madrid. The promise was kept 
in the letter and utterly broken in the spirit. 
The Peninsulars soon obtained absolute con- 
trol of the polls, and invariably elected a ma- 
jority of the deputies. Such representatives 
naturally did not have the interests of Cuba at 
heart, and no legislation to its advantage was 
undertaken. 

The cities, hopelessly in debt, were unable 
to provide sewerage, garbage service or street 
cleaning. Schools were closed. There was, and 
is, but one asylum for the insane in Cuba, that 
in Havana. Elsewhere, the insane are con- 
fined in prison cells. Church and state holi- 
days take up one-third of the time that might 
be devoted to labor to meet public expenses. 

Not only did Cuba, out of the earnings of 
the other two-thirds of the year, have to pay 
the high salaries of her horde of Spanish rulers, 



Cuba at a Glance 67 

but she suffered enormously from the dishon- 
esty of those officials. The custom house 
frauds alone, between 1878 and 1895, amount- 
ed to $100,000,000. But no relief was to be 
obtained under the Spanish interpretation of 
the Zanjon treaty. Patience ceased to seem a 
virtue, and in 1894 a new insurrection was 
mapped out by Jose Marti. 

He organized his first expedition in New 
York, and set sail for Cuba with three vessels, 
the Lagonda, the Amadis and the Baracoa, 
containing men and war materials. The expe- 
dition was stopped by United States' authori- 
ties. Later, Marti joined Gomez, Crombet, 
Guerra and the Maceo brothers — all insur- 
gents in the Ten Years' War — in Santo Dom- 
ingo, Gomez's home. They did not reach Cuba 
Cuba until May, 1895, but, in the preceding 
February, the insurgents had begun their re- 
bellion, and they gained ground even before 
the arrival of their commanders. 

The war has been conducted largely on the 
same principles as was the Ten Years' War. 
The insurgents seldom risk an open battle; 
the Spaniards gain but little ground in oppos- 
ing the guerilla methods of the Cubans. On 
May 19th Marti was killed in a skirmish. Go- 



68 Cuba at a Glance 

mez took command in his place, and thus the 
war practically began with the leaders on each 
side the same men who had closed the last war, 
General Martinez Campos and Maximo 
Gomez. Gomez has remained at the head of 
his forces. Campos was replaced in February, 
1896, by General Valeriano Weyler, who was, 
in turn, recalled in October, 1897, for Don 
Ramon Blanco. During the interval between 
the departure of Campos and the arrival of 
Weyler, General Marin was in charge. 

Under Commander-in-Chief Gomez the 
Cubans were in six divisions, operating in the 
six provinces: — In Pinar del Rio Antonio 
Maceo commanded; in Havana, General 
Aguerre; in Matanzas, Lacret; in Las Villas, 
Carillo; in Camaguey, Suarez; in Oriento, 
Jose Maceo. Jose Maceo died, and Antonio 
Maceo was afterward killed. Saurez was cash- 
iered for cowardice, and Garcia later replaced 
him in the East. 

The most important battle of the Campos 
campaign was that of Bayamo. In July, 1895, 
Campos met the rebels. The Spaniards weie 
severely tried, and Campos' life was saved only 
by the sacrifice of that of General Santocildes. 
Antonio Maceo treated the wounded whom 



Cuba at a Glance 69 

the Spanish left on the field, at the time of 
their retreat, with the utmost humanity. He 
wrote to Campos: — 

"To His Excellency the General Martinez 
Campos : — 

"Dear Sir — Anxious to give careful and ef- 
ficient attendance to the wounded Spanish 
soldiers that your troops left behind on the 
battle field, I have ordered that they be lodged 
in the houses of the Cuban families that live 
nearest to the battle grounds until you send 
for them. 

"With my assurance that the forces you 
may send to escort them back will not meet 
any hostile demonstrations from my soldiers, 
I have the honor to be, sir, 

"Yours respectfully, 

"ANTONIO MACEO." 

After this Campos retreated, but the Cu- 
bans continued their invasion toward the in- 
terior. In July, 1895, Gomez issued a procla- 
mation from Camaguey, prohibiting the car- 
rying of articles of commerce into cities of 
Spanish occupation, and, under threat of 
direst penalty, the cultivation, cutting or 
grinding of sugar cane. The Spaniards at first 



jo Cuba at a Glance 

regarded this as a humorous document. But 
they soon had cause to change their views. 

When Campos failed to confine the insur- 
gents to the East, he arranged a snare for 
them near Mai Tiempo. There the Spanish 
were caught in their own trap. The Cubans 
were victorious. 

Again Campos tried to hem them in. In 
December, 1895, he lay in wait for Maceo's in- 
vading forces between Coliseo and Lumidero. 
The Cubans seemed outgeneraled, when it oc- 
curred to Maceo to order the firing of the cane 
fields on either side of the Spaniards. The re- 
sult of this was that Campos, finding himself 
between two columns of flame, retreated into 
Havana on Christmas Day, completely van- 
quished. His resignation followed at once, 
and was accepted. 

Part of Campos' fame as a general rests 
upon the building of the trochas. He found 
them effectual in the last war for fencing the 
enemy out of certain districts. The trocha is 
a ditch nine feet deep, filled with water. On 
each side is a wire fence. On the east bank 
(always the one toward the insurgents) is a 
beaten path, patrolled by cavalrymen, and 
having light artillery defences. On the west 



Cuba at a Glance yi 

side are detached earthworks, guarded by in- 
fantry and connected by telephone. Ap- 
proaches are protected by rifle pits. 

In this war a trocha was first built between 
Puerto Principe and Santa Clara provinces. 
The insurgents easily evaded it. Another was 
built through Las Cruces and Las Lajas, but 
the rebels found their way through that, also. 
The Spanish retreated still further toward the 
west, and the capital, and constructed a third 
trocha from Matanzas to the Bay of La Broa. 

The insurgent burning of the sugar fields 
has been criticised severely by onlookers, and 
has been held up by the Spanish as an example 
of the reckless, uncivilized methods of their 
foes. In reality, it is part of a distinctly 
planned policy. From the sugar crop Spain re- 
ceives in peace the largest part of its Cuban 
revenues. To destroy the crop is to cripple 
Spain, already nearly bankrupt, and to cripple 
Spain enough is to make Cuba free, indeed. 

General Valeriano Weyler, known in Cuba 
as "the Butcher," succeeded Campos. He was 
warmly received in Havana, where he arrived 
on February 10, 1896. He did not take the 
field against the rebels until the following No- 
vember. This was due to the rainy season, 



72 Cuba at a Glance 

which, setting in a few months after his ar- 
rival, made fighting impossible until late in the 
fall. 

Maceo was in the western part of Pinar del 
Rio when Weyler sallied out of Havana, avow- 
edly to crush him. Gomez, in Havana prov- 
ince, he ignored for the time. When he reached 
Pinar del Rio he met the Cubans in ten en- 
gagements in fifteen days. The skirmishes and 
battles were at Paso Real, Candelario, Rio 
Hondu, San Cristobal, Neuva Empressa, Guira 
Melera and Iniquica. In each the Spanish suf- 
fered loss. Moreover, they were obliged to 
swallow the mortification of watching from 
the rear the victorious advance of the "rebels" 
toward Havana. They themselves returned to 
the western part of the island later, and Wey- 
ler re-entered the capital. 

While Maceo was in Havana province he 
was killed by the Spanish under Major Ciru- 
jada. 

General Weyler wrote statements concern- 
ing the complete pacification of various prov- 
inces of the island, but, in January, 1897, 
raised some question as to the trustworthi- 
ness of his own reports by again leaving Ha- 
vana to engage in warfare in the "pacified" in- 



Cuba at a Glance 73 

terior. Again, he gained no advantage what- 
ever, and soon the rainy season forced him to 
give up active hostilities. 

By the time another dry season had arrived 
Weyler was immersed in difficulties with his 
home government. In October, 1897, Don 
Ramon Blanco, the present Captain General, 
was sent to succeed him, and he returned to 
Spain. Blanco has, so far, followed the exam- 
ple of his predecessors, and failed to put down 
the rebellion. 



X. 



THE most conspicuous man in the 
Spanish forces during the present 
Cuban war has been General Val- 
eriano Weyler y Nicolau, Marquis 
of Tenerifre. He came widely heralded as "the 
Butcher." His popular title he gained in the 
Ten Years' War, where, as a colonel, he had 
followed the fortunes of Spain. The Cubans 
told of his cruelty to women and children. 
His "concentration" policy seemed to lend 
color to the reports of his foes. His striking 
personality has been most graphically de- 
scribed by Elbert Rappleye: — 

"And what a picture! A little man. An ap- 
parition of blacks — black eyes, black hair, 
black beard — dark, exceedingly dark com- 
plexion; a plain black attire, black shoes, black 
tie, a very dirty shirt and soiled standing col- 
lar, with no jewelry and not a relief from the 
aspect of darkness anywhere on his per- 



son. 



* ^ * 



"His eyes far apart, bright, alert and strik- 



Cuba at a Glance 75 

ing, took me in at a glance. His face seemed to 
run to chin, his lower jaw protruding far be- 
yond any ordinary indication of firmness, per- 
sistence or will power. * * * His nose 
is aquiline, bloodless and obtrusive. 

"Inferior physically, unsoldierly in bearing, 
exhibiting no trace of refined sensibilities, nor 
pleasure in the gentle associations that others 
live for, he is, nevertheless, the embodiment of 
mental acuteness, craft, unscrupulous, fearless 
and of indomitable perseverance." 

Mr. Rappleye's inference of a cruel nature 
expressed by this exterior seems borne out 
by occasional reports from the seat of war, 
even those making no especial mention of 
characteristic "butcher" methods. One such 
dealt chiefly with his escape from death in the 
Siguranca mountains in February, 1897. His 
horse was shot under him as he rode to attack 
an insurgent hospital! 

Weyler says frankly and egotistically of him- 
self:— 

"I care not for America, England — any 
one — but only for the treaties we have with 
them. They are the law. * * * I know I 
am merciless, but mercy has no place in war. 
I know the reputation which has been built up 



j6 Cuba at a Glance 

for me. * * * I care not what is said about 
me unless it is a lie so grave as to occasion 
alarm. I am not a politician. I am Weyler." 

Weyler was born forty-nine years ago in 
Palma, capital of Majorca, one of the Balearic 
islands. 

Campos was a different sort of man, "fat, 
good natured, wise, philosophical, slow in 
his mental processes, clear in his judgment, 
emphatic in his opinions, outspoken and 
withal lovable, humane, conservative, con- 
structive, progressive, with but one project 
ever before him — the glorification of Spain as 
a motherland and a figure among peaceful, en- 
lightened nations." 

Campos — Arsenio Martinez Campos — was 
born in Cuba in 1834. He was educated in 
Madrid. In 1870 he was a brigadier against 
the Carlist insurrection. He fought in the 
Ten Years' War as general and brought it to a 
close at Zanjon. As Minister of War and 
Prime Minister in 1879 he tried to redeem his 
pledges to Cuba, but received no support 
from his colleagues or the Cortes. 

W'eyler's successor, Don Ramon Blanco y 
Erenas, Marquis of Pena Plata, has been all 
his life a man of war. He won his first renown 



Cuba at a Glance 77 

in the war against the Carlists. In 1879 ne 
was Captain General of Cuba. At Catalonia 
and in the Philippines he has been governor. 
His methods are not the lenient ones of Cam- 
pos, and he himself complacently counts his 
executions and the hundreds of Philippinian 
rebels whom he deported to the frightful 
Spanish colonial jails. 

In strong contrast to these leaders and their 
methods are the leaders of the Cuban cause 
and their methods. Their commander in 
chief, Maximo Gomez, says to all his men : — 

"Do not risk your life unnecessarily. You 
have only one and can best serve your country 
by saving it. Dead men cannot fire guns. 
Keep your head cool, your machete warm, 
and we will yet free Cuba." 

He is about seventy-five years old. He was 
born in Santo Domingo. At one time he was 
a soldier in the Spanish army, serving as a cap- 
tain under Valeriano Weyler. 

He is described by an English writer who 
joined the insurrectionists in Cuba thus: — 

"He is a study in repose or in action. Slen- 
der in build, not over one hundred and forty 
pounds in weight, about five feet seven inches 
in height, straight as an arrow. His face is 



78 Cuba at a Glance 

tanned; his hair and mustache are iron gray; 
his cheek bones are prominent and his chin 
firm. His cool, calculating eyes seem at first 
completely to measure you, and then the face 
breaks into a reassuring smile. On the saddle, 
the horse is a part of him. He never seems 
to guide it. 

''His Spanish love of externals is seen in his 
superb black stallion, in his faultless uniform, 
in glittering pistols that hang from his belt, in 
the gold mounted carbine flung from the pom- 
mel of his saddle, in his decorated sabre, and in 
the grandeur of his manner whenever he comes 
into contact with somebody from the world 
without, especially an American." 

Not less interesting than "Cuba's cham- 
pion was the man whom the Spaniards have 
described as an ignorant negro, Antonio Ma- 
ceo. He was born in 1843 in Santiago de 
Cuba. Twenty-three times he was wounded 
by the Spanish troops in various uprisings. 
His chest was pierced through and through 
and his continued existence seemed miracu- 
lous. Hatred of the Spanish was with his 
family a traditional feeling. Six of his broth- 
ers died fighting Spain, and one, Filipe, lives 
an invalid on account of his wounds. 



Cuba at a Glance 79 

Antonio Maceo in the Ten Years' War 
reached the rank of major general by the 
sheer force of his military genius. In this war 
he outwitted Spain's most renowned generals 
and defeated with his small, poorly trained 
forces the flower of the Spanish army. He 
was killed finally in Havana province in De- 
cember, 1896, and it will probably never be 
doubted by his followers that his death was 
due to the disloyalty of one among his allies. 

General Martinez Campos, writing to 
Spain's Prime Minister in 1878, said of him: — 

"It is very difficult to arrange peace in San- 
tiago de Cuba (Zanjon Treaty), where Anto- 
nio Maceo rules. He was a peasant, and is now 
a general. His ambition is enormous, his cour- 
age great, his prestige immense among his 
countrymen. He is a man of high natural tal- 
ent, and for him nothing could be done, not- 
withstanding the wishes of the Cuban gov- 
ernment." 

So far the civil authorities in Cuba have 
not played so brilliant a part in its history as 
the military leaders. The first president of the 
republic established in 1895 was Salvador Cis- 
neros Betancourt, Marquis de Santa Lucia. 
He was born in Puerto Principe in 1832. It 



80 Cuba at a Glance 

was his privilege to sign the decree abolishing 
slavery in 1870. He lived in New York from 
1878 until 1886 agitating new revolutionary 
movements. He was in favor of annexation 
to the United States, a view in which his suc- 
cessor, Bartolome Maso, does not agree with 
him. 

Maso was born in Manzanillo and educated 
at Havana University. He was a wealthy 
planter, but he threw aside his fortune to fight 
in the Ten Years' War. He was imprisoned 
and deported for denouncing the bad faith of 
the Spaniards after the Zanjon Treaty. He 
succeeded Cisneros in October, 1897. Ac- 
cording to the constitution of the Cuban Re- 
public, officers of the government serve for 
two years. 



XL 



AFTER the treaty of peace which 
concluded the Ten Years' War Cu- 
ba's right to representation in the 
Cortes appears to have been rec- 
ognized. The word "appears" is used advised- 
ly, for Cuba's representatives, exactly calcu- 
lated, amount to three senators from the prov- 
ince of Havana, one from Santiago and one 
from the Society of the Friends of the Coun- 
try. Eight deputies for more than one million 
of Cubans! 

They are further permitted thirty deputies 
elected by popular ballot, one representative 
for every 50,000 inhabitants. 

The clause "elected by popular ballot" is 
important, for it may thus be easily under- 
stood that the Spanish natives and the Cuban 
Volunteers expect to influence the elections. 
That they are successful is evidenced in the 
fact that last spring out of thirty deputies 
twenty-six were natives of Spain. 

In spite of the Treaty of Zanjon and the 



82 Cuba at a Glance 

supplementary Act of 1879 Madrid's colonial 
policy would seem still to be characterized by 
a system of monopoly and a lack of sincerity. 

The head of the military government in 
Cuba is all powerful. His title is Governor 
General. In 1825, when Cuba gained the title 
of "The Ever Faithful Isle," the functions of 
this personage might have been defined as 
those of a despot. To-day he may be said to 
retain the same liberties of action. His ap- 
pointment is by the Crown and endures for 
not less than three years and not more than 
five. Of the civil, ecclesiastical, military and 
naval organizations he is chief. He is at the 
head of an army consisting of 13,000 troops, 
gathered from Spain and salaried out of the 
Cuban exchequer. 

Subject to the Governor General's summons 
is a body known as the Council of Administra- 
tion, composed of thirty members. Fifteen 
are appointed by the Crown, fifteen are elect- 
ed by the provinces; but, as is customary under 
Spanish diplomacy, a safe majority of Penin- 
sulars or ultra-loyalists is assured. 

The Council of Administration is peculiar, 
not only in that it serves without pay, but 
that, being held personally and financially re- 



Cuba at a Glance 83 

sponsible if its votes displease, it is always in 
danger of being sued for damages. Besides 
being depended upon to give universal satis- 
faction it has a number of other duties, among 
them the preparation of receipts and expendi- 
tures for the review of the Cortes and the 
framing of resolutions on any important pub- 
lic matter. But here, too, the Governor Gen- 
eral is all powerful. If he approve these reso- 
lutions they pass into effect, if not he holds 
them over. Indeed, his authority is so su- 
preme that he may suspend such members of 
the administrative council as are trouble- 
some up to the number of fourteen, or he may 
even suspend them all after consultation with 
another body known as the Council of Au- 
thorities. He may then proceed, the latter 
body always, however, apprising the home 
government of any differences that may dis- 
turb his amicable relations with the Council 
of Administration. 

The Council of Authorities is composed ex- 
clusively of high dignitaries, the Archbishop 
of Santiago, the Bishop of Havana, the com- 
manding officers of the army and navy, the 
chief justice of the Supreme Court of Havana, 
the Attorney General, the head of the Depart- 



84 Cuba at a Glance 

ment of Finances and the director of the local 
administration. 

The Governor General's power extends 
even to the control of the provinces, each of 
which is nominally conducted by a Governor 
of its own, an appointee of the Crown. He 
has, for instance, the authority to suspend, on 
the report of the Governor, any of the pro- 
vincial assemblies, which are elected for a 
term of four years. 

City governments are under the control of 
a mayor, also subject to removal at the Gov- 
ernor General's pleasure. 

Two superior courts are included in the ju- 
dicial system of Cuba, which are not of over- 
weening importance, since in the Governor 
General, under a provision of 1878, is vested 
the power to overrule any decisions of any 
court, or even to postpone the enactment of 
any decree proceeding from the government 
at Madrid. 

Assisted by the rector of the University of 
Havana, like himself a native of Spain, the 
Governor General has supreme voice in the 
educational system of Cuba. Besides the Uni- 
versity of Havana, there is a collegiate insti- 
tute in each of the six provinces, where de- 



Cuba at a Glance 85 

grees may be conferred. When there is the 
ability and desire to establish schools, educa- 
tion is compulsory; otherwise, the law of 1880, 
enforcing education, is ignored. 

The laws governing associations and socie- 
ties are rigid. Their purposes, constitutions 
and by-laws must be submitted to the gover- 
nor of the province in which they are organ- 
ized. He may have the privilege of consider- 
ing himself an honored guest at their meet- 
ings whenever he so desires. Furthermore, he 
may at his discretion, perhaps because a note 
of revolution seems to be present, dissolve 
the assemblage and forbid its meeting again 
until the superior court of the district has 
passed upon his judgment. 

The governor of each province is vested 
with the power of censorship over the publica- 
tion of all literature, and with the Governor 
General rests full authority to prohibit or per- 
mit any pictures or caricatures. 

Anonymous publications are absolutely for- 
bidden, no matter how innocent. It is obliga- 
tory that three copies of any issue whatsoever 
be sent to the governor or mayor to be passed 
upon. 

Jews and Protestants are at a discount on 



86 Cuba at a Glance 

the island. The Roman Catholic is the only 
religion tolerated, and no one would be per- 
mitted to advance doctrines contrary to the 
established Church, though he would be per- 
mitted to live in Cuba and conduct his wor- 
ship privately. 

A provisional government was formed by 
the insurgents in September, 1895. There 
were present twenty representatives from all 
the provinces but Pinar del Rio. They drew 
up and adopted a constitution and elected of- 
ficers of state, of whom the President was 
Salvador Cisneros Betancourt. Bartolome 
Maso was Vice President, who has since be- 
come President. 

This government has its seat at Cubitas, on 
the top of a mountain twenty-five miles from 
Puerto Principe, but it is in reality a sort of 
peripatetic committee of affairs, whose au- 
thority is largely on paper. 

Cuban currency is in a remarkably tangled 
state. The unit of measure is an ounce of gold, 
but Spanish gold, being less fine than Ameri- 
can, is not worth so much. These two golds 
and silver circulate confusedly. Paper money 
is not used. 



XII. 

(Physical Cuba.) 

CUBA is in the northern part of the 
torrid zone, just south of Florida. 
It lies between 74 degrees and 85 
degrees west longtitude and 19 
degrees and 23 degrees north latitude. It con- 
tains 43,314 square miles, an area equal to 
England, excluding Wales, or one-fourth of 
Spain. It is twenty-nine times the size of 
Long Island. Its average breadth is eighty 
miles. The Island of Pines, the largest of the 
neighboring islands which belong to it, is 
1,214 square miles in area. 

According to the last official census in 1887, 
there were 1,631,687 inhabitants. Of these 
one-fifth were natives of Spain, 10,500 were 
whites of foreign blood, 485,187 were free ne- 
groes, about 50,000 were Chinese and the rest 
native Cubans. 

The coast is low and flat, and is approached 
in many parts by islands and reefs. It meas- 
ures, exclusive of its indentations, 2,200 miles. 



88 Cuba at a Glance 

Including them, it measures 7,000 miles. It 
has many admirable and well protected har- 
bors, especially on the north side, where are 
Havana, Matanzas and Cardenas. 

It is as far from the Florida mainland as 
New York is from Albany. 

From Key West to the nearest point on the 
Cuban coast is 36 miles. 

From Key West to Havana is 93 miles. 
From New York to Havana is 1,413 miles. 
From New Orleans to Havana is 475 miles. 
Above the lowlands of the coast rise grazing 
and farm lands. Four- fifths of the land is a 
fertile plain. The rest is dense forest land, in 
which are found rich woods, mahogany, ebony, 
cedar, palm and granadillo. 

The eastern section, especially the province 
of Santiago de Cuba, is mountainous. In it 
are found minerals — iron ore, fine steel, gold 
and silver in small quantities, copper in abun- 
dance, fine bituminous coal and marble. 

Tobacco and sugar are the chief products 
and constitute the chief wealth of Cuba, al- 
though cotton and coffee are also grown. In 
Pinar del Rio is raised the finest tobacco in 
the world. 

On the coast the climate is that of the torrid 



Cuba at a Glance 89 

zone. Inland it is more temperate. In the 
country districts in the provinces of Matanzas 
and Havana even the summer period is 
healthy. In the provinces of Puerto Principe 
and Santiago de Cuba the character of the 
country is hilly and the temperature equable. 
The western part of the island is as habitable 
as western Pennsylvania. 

The simplest precautions and the observ- 
ance of most ordinary hygienic rules would 
enable troops to operate in Cuba with no> more 
danger of disease than they would incur in the 
southern part of the United States. The 
tropical fruits should be avoided by unaccli- 
mated persons. Sugar cane, which, in spite of 
the destruction of the fields, is still to be found 
in Cuba, is not ripe until the fall. Earlier in 
the year it is sweet but very watery, and con- 
tains large amounts of glutinous substances 
conducive to intestinal troubles. Yellow 
fever exists in Matanzas, Sagua, Havana, Car- 
denas and Santiago almost continuously. The 
interior cities, however, are seldom visited by 
it and it does not exist at all in the country. 
A mild form of malaria prevails throughout 
the lowlands. Sunstroke is very uncommon 
among the natives, but might prevail among 



90 Cuba at a Glance 

recently arrived troops unless they were prop- 
erly clothed and had frequent opportunities 
for bathing. 

The diet for fresh arrivals in Cuba should 
consist of plenty of meat, few vegetables, cof- 
fee in generous quantities and no alcohol at 
all. 

England advises woollen underwear for her 
tropical troops and colonists, but those who' 
have lived long in Cuba declare that linen, 
light both in weight and color, is the proper 
material for the Cuban climate. Wool is not 
desirable there because it retains dampness 
longer than linen, and dampness is one of 
the conditions which will confront the Ameri- 
can troops. 

From the first of May until the end of Octo- 
ber is the rainy season. This is the only real 
drawback to the Cuban climate, for its heat 
and cold are never of the extreme variety and 
there is only a slight difference between the 
summer and winter temperatures. The av- 
erage temperature in Havana in the hottest 
month is only 81 degrees Fahrenheit, in the 
coldest only 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Breezes 
redeem even the rainy season. The average 
number of rainy days during a month in the 



Cuba at a Glance 91 

rainy season is eight or ten. The rainfall is 
generally in the afternoon. Earthquakes are 
of rare occurrence, Santiago de Cuba being 
more frequently visited by them than any 
other province. 

The official political divisions of the island 
are Pinar del Rio, the westernmost of the 
provinces; Havana, Matanzas, Santa Clara, 
Puerto Principe and Santiago de Cuba, lying 
east of one another in the order named. Each 
of these provinces is named from its capital 
city. 

Havana, the chief city of the island, has a 
fluctuating population of about two hundred 
thousand. It contains many fine buildings and 
many squalid ones. To the tourist it is very 
picturesque. The harbor, if properly dredged, 
could shelter the navies of the world. Its chief 
defences are the Castillo de la Punta, on the 
west of the harbor, and the Castillo de la 
Morro and San Carlos de la Cabana, to the 
east. At the head of one arm of Havana bay is 
the fort which commands both the city and 
the adjacent country — the Santo Domingo de 
Atares. The Castillo del Principe is the other 
principal fortification of Havana. 

Second in commercial importance to Ha- 



92 Cuba at a Glance 

vana is Matanzas, which lies about seventy- 
four miles from Havana, on the northern coast 
of the island. It has a population of about 
fifty thousand. It is one of the most beauti- 
fully situated cities in Cuba. 

Santiago^ de Cuba is the most flourish- 
ing city in the eastern part of the island. It 
has an admirable harbor, communicating with 
the sea through a narrow passage. Its most 
conspicuous defence is called Morro Castle. 

The most modern city of importance in 
Cuba is Cienfuegos, in the province of Santa 
Clara, It has a population of over twenty-six 
thousand. Its harbor is one of the best on the 
southern coast. 

Another important city on the northern 
coast is Cardenas. It is east of Havana about 
one hundred miles. It has a population of 
over twenty thousand, has a flourishing trade 
and large manufactories. 

The eastern point of the island is Cape 
Maisi, and the western Cape St. Antonio. At 
the western end of the south shore of the 
province of Santiago de Cuba, opposite Cape 
Maisi, is Cape Cruz. Between these two capes 
runs the Sierra Maestra range. The whole 
eastern part of Santiago de Cuba is mountain- 



Cuba at a Glance 93 

ous, and broken mountain ranges lie through- 
out the island. 

The Sierra Maestra range changes its name 
in about the middle of its course, and becomes 
the Sierra de Cobre, or Copper Mountains. 
Here is the highest point of land in Cuba — 
Blue Peak (Pico Turquino), 8,320 feet high. 

Rivers are numerous, but not large or often 
navigable. Many of them "lose themselves." 
The largest of them is the Cauto, in Santiago 
de Cuba, which is navigable for fifty miles. 
The Chorrera, or Almendares, supplies Ha- 
vana with water. The largest one on the 
northern coast is the Sagua la Grande, ninety 
miles long and navigable for twenty miles. 

Lakes are comparatively few in Cuba. They 
lie mainly near the coast swamps, but there 
are some also in the mountains. 

Santiago de Cuba, besides its mountains, 
has wonderful cascades, caves and cataracts. 
United States Navy Lieutenant Andrew 
Rowan, in "The Island of Cuba," says of this 
province: — 

"This extremely broken and precipitous 
country is the least known, as it is the most 
difficult of access of any of the political divi- 
sions of the island. Roads are few and poor, 



94 Cuba at a Glance 

but the great diversity of products, due to 
rapid change in the climate, which is caused 
by the difference in elevation, makes this re- 
gion one of the most wonderful in the world. 
The cascades, cataracts and natural portals, 
surrounded by an ever-verdant foliage, com- 
bined with numerous species of flowering or- 
chids and other tropical flowers, and with an 
animal life in all its gayest colors, present here 
a picture such as is furnished at but few points 
on the globe." 



XIII. 



Notes from the Front. 

A LETTER FROM FREDERIC REM- 
INGTON, ON BOARD THE BATTLE 
SHIP IOWA. 

I BOARDED the tug which took 
all the shore leave men off to their 
ships and was "landed" (one 
might almost say it) on the Iowa 
— battle ship — an iron island floating on the 
sea. 

The Captain was the celebrated Fighting 
Bob Evans of common report, but aboard 
ship I found him a calm-eyed man — very plain 
and straightforward in his affairs. It was Cap- 
tain Evans simply — and stand up when you 
say it and have your statement straight, for 
the weather roll in the Captain's eye as it turns 
over your person is very severe and not en- 
couraging. 

To a shore man the environment of a mod- 
ern battle ship is more strange than any dream. 
It cock-tails up in your mind with a nut and 



96 Cuba at a Glance 

bolt factory as a base — but the other mixtures 
are like an international exhibition, a World's 
Fair of people and things. The throb of 
engines — the shrill squeeling of bo'suns' 
whistles — electric lights — cranes swinging 
coal in from the lighter 'longside, long guns 
bigger than forest trees sticking everywhere, 
sharp orders, gentlemanly officers in white 
duck trousers, and bare-footed jackies running 
about, monkey-like in their movements, 
while marine guards strut martially across the 
deck. 

You go to the dining room — or, as they say, 
"wardroom" — through another room which 
makes you chilly because it is filled with long 
fish-like torpedoes which are loaded with dy- 
namite or other nervous things which are dif- 
ficult to tolerate on intimate living terms. 

And to-morrow we are going to war. One 
doesn't in these days go to war often enough 
to make it commonplace, and yet strain as I 
would, hunt high and low, officers and sailor- 
men, I could find nothing but the most deadly 
apathy concerning the whole proceeding. I 
don't think it was because they were overused 
to going to war, but they have eaten and slept 
and drilled and thought so much within this 



Cuba at a Glance 97 

ship's sides that it has eaten up their other 
thoughts. They are a part of the big machine 
the Iowa, and she was built to go to war — so 
why not ? 

Every one was happy on the fine morning, 
going to war. Sailors hate a blockade — they 
dread inaction. They want to mix it up with 
the batteries, but the blessed old United States 
Army is not ready yet, so they must wait; but 
they took it out of the soldiers, and dearly I 
wished for some of them to be along to take 
their own part — for it's no funeral of mine if 
the tents, the grub, the mules and the guns are 
not there ready for men to use. 

"To-morrow may bring great things," 
mused an officer alongside me. "What do 
you think — a lieutenant at forty-five years of 
age — what do you think?" sighed this har- 
rowed soul. "A hero at forty-five years — I 
did not enter the service to be a hero at forty- 
five years. I told the Secretary a while ago 
that when I died all I wanted on my tombstone 
was 'Lieutenant B , U. S. Navy, Bun- 
coed.' " 

Do not imagine that this deep sentiment in- 
terferes with my old friend — he likes to think 
aloud about his trouble — and it's a good fash- 



98 Cuba at a Glance 

ion very much affected by all the seagoing 
men. 

A fat little 'prentice boy became confidential 
with me after introducing me to many ship's 
mysteries, and said, "We are starving aboard 
this ship — we have nothing to eat." 

With surprise I turned on him — such a 
startling statement — to think of Uncle Sam's 
starving these brave "bullies" of his, but I kept 
back my laugh, for the fat little rascal was 
positively greasy, and his trousers strained 
about his legs. 

I can see the Captain up on the bridge, forty 
feet above the water; the executive, Mr. 
Rodgers, a sharp visaged gentleman, who goes 
speeding about the ship hunting up trouble for 
any man who looks comfortable; and the en- 
gineer officers, who come up out of the coal 
and grease for a breath of fresh air. The ma- 
rine sergeant in charge of the after deck sweats 
badly as he strides about, buttoned up to the 
last gasp. The young officers in the steerage 
show me a strange Burmah goddess — in mar- 
ble — kept under lock and key, except when 
they make their big medicine, and they told 
me the story, but my lips are ice. 

Sometimes things do happen, but they are 



Cuba at a Glance 99 

little things. The black cat fell overboard one 
morning, or the fox terrier who inhabits up 
forward chased him overboard — we do not 
know which. An alarm was promptly given — 
it would never do to have a black cat lose her 
life in such a way, for black cats in particular 
are portentous things even when alive, but 
dead ones are something awful. Who knows 
what might happen after that? 

So a boat was lowered and the big battle 
bhip Iowa temporarily abandoned the blockade 
of Havana and steamed in a circle, hunting one 
lost black cat. The cat came alongside, paw- 
ing the water frantically, and was rescued by a 
jackie who went down the sea ladder and 
grabbed her just in time. 

With night it comes cool, and the officers 
and men sit smoking in the shadow of the 
superstructure, gazing at the lights of Havana 
— we might be a yachting party off Newport, 
only we are not. The guns are all shotted and 
the watch on deck lies about them on the deck, 
all ready on the instant. There are two little 
tubs of Spanish gunboats in the harbor, which 
come outside and are chased back. They ap- 
pear to be monkeying with us, but if they get 
near enough we will saw them off and have 
fun with them. 



ioo Cuba at a Glance 

The sea is like the water in your bath tub; 
the iron plate of the Iowa is a griddle — the sky 
is more red than blue, and a mosquito's wings 
would create a hurricane in the air. 

A Letter from Julian Hawthorne. 

IN India the famine is the result of 
natural causes, uncontrollable by 
man, and to abate which every ef- 
fort was made; you felt in looking 
at the victims that all was being clone for 
them that energy and intelligence could do, 
and that humanity and science were united in 
the effort to succor them. But in Cuba it is 
another story. These people have starved in 
a land capable of supplying tens of millions of 
people with abundant food. The very ground 
on which they lie down to breathe their last 
might be planted with produce that would feed 
them to repletion. But so far from any effort 
to save them having been made by Spain, she 
has wilfully and designedly compassed their de- 
struction. She has driven them in from their 
fields and plantations and forbidden them to 
help themselves; the plantations themselves 
have been laid waste, and should the miserable 
reconcentrados attempt under the pretended 



Cuba at a Glance 101 

kindly dispensation of Blanco to return to 
their properties they would find the Spanish 
guerillas lying in wait to massacre them. No 
agony of either mind or body has been want- 
ing. The wife has lost her husband, the 
mother her children, the child its parents, the 
husband his family. They have seen them die. 
Often they have seen them slaughtered wan- 
tonly as they lay helpless, waiting a slower end. 
The active as well as the passive cruelties of 
the Spaniards toward these people have been 
well nigh unimaginable. The stories sent 
home by journalists are uniformly within the 
truth, for journalists are familiar with human 
suffering of all kinds, and are not carried off 
their feet by the sight of it. The comfortable 
readers who did not believe a tithe of them at 
home, when they have investigated for them- 
selves declare that a tithe has not been told. 
JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 

A Letter from Robert W. Edgren. 

ON the red-hot sand she lay, a 
child of seven years — her black 
hair matted with blood and dirt, 
on her head a ghastly cut made 
by a machete. Overhead the black buzzards 



io2 Cuba at a Glance 

of Cuba soared in lessening circles. Near at 
hand was a poor, palm thatched hut. At the 
very threshold lay the body of another child, 
starved and thin. The machete had been 
there, too, and starvation had been robbed of 
another victim. Inside the hut lay a man shot 
through the back. His bloodless face, lying 
on the hard earth, his nerveless skeleton hands 
grasping in death some poor trinket that the 
plunderers had failed to find of sufficient value 
to warrant carrying away. I turned aside sick- 
ened. On his horse sat the Spanish soldier, 
our body guard kindly ordered by the com- 
mandant to show us the scenery about Mont- 
serrat. In the hot sun his eyes seem to nar- 
row with amusement at the feeling displayed 
by those fool "Americanos." It was a joke to 
him. It amused him to see our looks of hor- 
ror, and he showed his wolfish fangs in a grin 
of satisfaction. The bundle of rags that we 
had first seen moved a little. The Red Cross 
doctor uttered an exclamation. In an instant 
he was on his knees, and the little girl was care- 
fully lifted in a pair of strong arms and carried 
into the shade, and the buzzards flapped their 
black wings in silent protest. Half an hour 
later, when the ragged gash had been carefully 



Cuba at a Glance 103 

dressed and the little patient opened her eyes 
to look into strange faces the doctor heard 
her story. 

It was not an uncommon one — in Cuba. 

"How did you get hurt?" 

"Machete." 

"Where is your father?" 

"Machete; and my sister the soldiers — " 

Then her eye caught the figure of our body 
guard sitting on his horse, machete at his side, 
and she uttered a faint cry of fear. No other 
word would she utter. The terror of Span- 
iards seals tongues in this land of murder and 
rapine. She is dead now, poor child, but 
others will take her place. The Spanish sol- 
dier will never carry a clean blade while women 
and children are unprotected. 

ROBERT W. EDGREN. 

General Fitzhugh Lee's Opinion. 

THE Spanish soldiers are living al- 
most from hand to mouth. They 
have a good many barrels of flour 
and a good deal of rice and some 
potatoes, but not a great many, and a little 
lard; but everything that the town of Havana 
has received in the last four or five months has 



104 Cuba at a Glance 

been taken from the United States by steamers 
from New York, New Orleans and Tampa. 
The Spanish soldiers are badly clothed and 
very badly fed; not well organized; not drilled. 
Nobody ever saw Spanish soldiers drill. The 
same condition of things existed when Mr. 
Cleveland asked me to go down there last June 
a year ago. I gave him a report three weeks 
after I got there, in which I told him there was 
no chance, in my opinion, of the Spaniards ever 
suppressing that insurrection, nor was there 
any chance of the insurrectionists expelling 
the Spanish soldiers from the island. 1 have 
never thought that the insurgents had any- 
thing except the skeleton form of a govern- 
ment — a movable capital. I asked them one 
day why they did not have some permanent 
capital, and I think they gave a very good rea- 
son. They said it would require a large force 
to protect it and defend it, and that they could 
not afford to mass up their men there; that the 
capital and the government officers had to 
move where thev could be safest. 

# # #■ ■* # 

(A Letter from Grover Flint) 
"Were you ever at sea in an open boat, in 
a tropical ocean, swept by squalls and torna- 
does, and travelled only by filibusters and 



Cuba at a Glance 105 

Spanish cruisers eager for their capture? We 
were eleven in such a party — three Cuban of- 
ficers, three Cuban coast pilots, a doctor of the 
Sanitary Department, a newspaper correspond- 
ent and three negro sailors. Our mascot, a 
green and red parrot, which winked intelli- 
gently when the word filibuster was men- 
tioned, and which cried "Al machete! Al ma- 
chete!" when excited, completed the makeup 
of the party. Days dragged, and our ma- 
terials came a little at a time. We lay beneath 
the palm and wild grape trees, tortured by 
mosquitoes and sand flies, half a mile from Na- 
ternillos Light and the entrance to Nuevitas 
Harbor. In that harbor lay a gunboat, and 
another was on duty patrolling the coast for 
a few miles to east and west of us. Stories 
came from the town that our expedition was 
the talk of the cafes, and the bogie of treach- 
ery looked nearer to us than we cared at the 
time to< admit. A government commission 
with state papers and despatches would be no 
mean capture, and we felt that our heads 
would fetch a good price! 

We were off at last, after twenty days of 
toil and anxiety. The strain was too great for 
the little group of watchers on land. Pru- 
dence was thrown to the winds and a "Viva!" 



106 Cuba at a Glance 

rose that a gust caught and carried over the 
palm trees. " Viva Cuba! Viva la Independ- 
encia!" from the shore was answered by a faint 
"Al machete! Al machete!" from our boat. 
Then a cloud passed over the moon and we 
were fairly started on our journey. 

Our first course lay due northwest toward 
Naternillos Light, in order to make the pass 
in the reefs that lie in front of the entrance to 
Nuevitas Harbor. We tossed, in darkness, 
half a mile to seaward of Naternillos Light, 
and then sighted the light of Nuevitas Har- 
bor. From this point we struck a north- 
northwesterly course out through the reefs 
and past the breakers. 

The moon came out from beneath the 
clouds, and we had fears, as we passed the sil- 
ver path of its reflection, we might be seen 
from the lighthouse and a gunboat sent after 
us. We pitched along, constantly shipping 
cold waves over our starboard bow that 
drenched us to the skin, but making good 
time. In an hour we had passed into the 
darkness beyond the treachery of the moon's 
rays, and felt a general sense of relief. 

It was a rough, gusty night. Once a squall 
struck us with a heavy fall of rain, and we took 



Cuba at a Glance 107 

in all sail; but the wind settled down again to 
a northeast blow, and we continued on our 
course. We felt now that odds were no longer 
against our escape, and, though shivering in 
our scanty rags, wet and cold and unable to 
sleep, we were contented. We all of us had 
seen enough of Spanish atrocities to know 
what it meant to be captured, and that the 
authorities are not anxious for a repetition of 
the lingering Competitor trial. 

The sun of July 24 rose through banks of 
purple clouds over a heavy sea, and a head 
wind was still blowing from the northeast. 
At noon the heat was blistering. We were off 
the Columbus Banks, in English waters. Be- 
low we could see a sandy bottom with beds of 
brown sponges, and the lead told four fathoms. 

Night closed at last, and some of us slept 
in spite of the waves that still dashed over us, 
while the others kept themselves awake by 
bailing out the boat. 

At sunrise on the 25th we sighted Green 
Key. We landed there to stretch our cramped 
limbs at six o'clock, and were welcomed to 
English soil by a party of duck shooters from 
Nassau." — Grover Flint. 



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